| Title |
Vibrissal touch sensing in the harbor seal (Phoca vitulina): how do seals judge size?
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Journal of Comparative Physiology A, February 2013
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s00359-013-0797-7 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Robyn Grant, Sven Wieskotten, Nina Wengst, Tony Prescott, Guido Dehnhardt |
| Abstract |
"Whisker specialists" such as rats, shrews, and seals actively employ their whiskers to explore their environments and extract object properties such as size, shape, and texture. It has been suggested that whiskers could be used to discriminate between different sized objects in one of two ways: (i) to use whisker positions, such as angular position, spread or amplitude to approximate size; or (ii) to calculate the number of whiskers that contact an object. This study describes in detail how two adult harbor seals use their whiskers to differentiate between three sizes of disk. The seals judged size very fast, taking <400 ms. In addition, they oriented their smaller, most rostral, ventral whiskers to the disks, so that more whiskers contacted the surface, complying to a maximal contact sensing strategy. Data from this study supports the suggestion that it is the number of whisker contacts that predict disk size, rather than how the whiskers are positioned (angular position), the degree to which they are moved (amplitude) or how spread out they are (angular spread). |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profile of 1 X user who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 1 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Scientists | 1 | 100% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 77 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 2 | 3% |
| United States | 1 | 1% |
| Germany | 1 | 1% |
| Argentina | 1 | 1% |
| Unknown | 72 | 94% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 18 | 23% |
| Researcher | 13 | 17% |
| Student > Master | 11 | 14% |
| Student > Bachelor | 9 | 12% |
| Student > Doctoral Student | 4 | 5% |
| Other | 15 | 19% |
| Unknown | 7 | 9% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 47 | 61% |
| Engineering | 6 | 8% |
| Environmental Science | 4 | 5% |
| Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 2 | 3% |
| Computer Science | 2 | 3% |
| Other | 8 | 10% |
| Unknown | 8 | 10% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 4. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 January 2023.
All research outputs
#7,325,024
of 23,815,455 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Comparative Physiology A
#433
of 1,450 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#79,904
of 290,707 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Comparative Physiology A
#4
of 12 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,815,455 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 68th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,450 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.9. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 68% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 290,707 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 71% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 12 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its contemporaries.